So cute last time… What happened now?

About 3 weeks ago, my family members were all pouring ourselves over old photo albums, as we wanted to make a scrapbook for Ah Ma.

My 2 sisters and I wondered how come we were so cute last time and were teasing each other, “What happened now?” Born with egoistic blood running through our veins, we answered, “We just got prettier.”

Haha… Those old photos brought back so many memories… I think I’ll be including some funny ones of my parents when they were young some other time.

Now ME ME ME!!!

1st month 


Whenever anybody said "Fold your arms and cross your legs." I would do this. 

My parents thought I was very cute but my sisters thought I was plain acting cute.

Oops I did it again! 


Micky Mouse tops are so IN now... I was already so IN when 2. 


These are my scanned individuals. I still have so many cute ones in the album which my jealous sister did not scan… haha… And I was so upset coz both my sisters had a black and white passport sized photo of themselves at 2-3 years old while mine was stolen together with my wallet back in NUS. All who saw that photo agreed that I was REALLY very cute. Imagine chubby cheeks with BIG innocent round eyes. And they were REALLY BIG in that photo. I really wonder what happened to my eyes now. Oh and of course all who saw the photo also added, “What happened now?”

I’ve got 1/3 of my voice back liao. The day before yesterday, I lost part of it but I liked that kinda sexy voice and continued to teach for 3 more lessons withy that kind of voice. Then, yesterday I lost my voice completely. Yes.. the feeling was terrible. It was as if some sorceress had stolen my voice. When I tried to speak, no voice came out at all. I talked in whispers the whole of yesterday. So while I was busy wallowing myself in self-pity, my colleagues were clapping for joy coz the world is a more peaceful place without my voice. I communicated with my students and their parents via a small whiteboard and fortunately I had a new teacher to help me too. Some of the parents kept laughing at me each time I flashed the whiteboard. I guess the sight was quite a pathetically funny one. The children were also more obedient than usual. It's very amazing how children as young as 2 years old could sense that something was unusual with the teacher and so decided to be good little kids.

One of my 2 year old student was so cute. He was so excited to show me his toys and he kept talking to me while showing his toys. I told him I’ve lost my voice and could not speak much. He did not understand of course so he followed me speak in whispers and he thought it was very fun. His mummy had to explain to him that teacher is sick and cannot talk so much. Then he answered in his whispery voice. “Huh? Why like that?”

At night I went to teach C, my cute primary 3 boy. Being older, he of course knew that I was “whispering” because I had no voice but he chose to speak in whispers too.

“Teacher speak in whispers coz I have no voice. But you don’t have to whisper too, ok?”

He smiled his cheeky smile and whispered, “OK.”

What a whispery day it was.

“Eh, I understand you forever very busy……. But how can you find the time to blog huh?”

The above was quoted from one of my friends.

Everyone who knows me knows how busy I am. I am busy working, making materials, giving tuition, trying to find time to pak tor, trying to squeeze in any possible time to meet up with friends, cleaning up my messy room, churning out 80 over students’ reports, not to mention all the reports I owe my centre leader every twice a week. With all these, how can I even find time to eat, sleep and shit and laze around? So you can see how busy I am to even have to find time for eating, sleeping and shitting?

“How do you blog this much if you are so busy?”

I blog about whatever that comes to my mind… freely and spontaneousely, with no governed topics and fear of going out of point. This means I blog all the time… in my mind of course… whenever I am brushing my teeth, whenever I am bathing, whenever I am walking to the mrt station, whenever I am on the train. So each day I have a few topics to blog about and when I really get my ass in front of the computer, I just choose which ones to write about and regurgitate them. This doesn’t take much time and it fits perfectly into my busy schedule.

Blogging is like a hobby to me. It is a virtual place to unwind, to pour out my thoughts since nobody in my family really wants to listen to all my nonsense. In the past, I have the different groups of friends and buddies to see me through my day and to listen to all my ranting. Right now, I face my colleaues every single day and I don’t really want to bore them with my crap. If I were to keep all my rubbish in my head, I would just go mad coz even kh doesn’t wanna listen to all my complaints. I will suffer from constipation eventually and hence I write them out to feel better. I spare those around me and I don’t have to unleash all my thoughts on somebody who may not even be listening.

Blogging is therapeutic. I don’t have time to pursue much hobby except reading, please at least let me blog can.

See I only took less than ten minutes to write this post.

It's the mooncake festival

Mid-autumn festival to be exact.

Lanterns everywhere…

Both the traditional and fanciful lighted ding-dong-bell electronic kind.

Sparklers…

Candles lining the walkway.

Happy children’s screams and laughter.

Grandparents eating mooncakes at the stone tables, occasionally shouting out to the kids to be careful of fire.

Some people are enjoying themselves at the Chinese Garden right now admiring all the lanterns and floats.

Some people are sitting in front of the computer trying to type progress reports but ended up not doing so.

And I’ve not eaten a single mooncake this year!

I wouldn’t have known the mid autumn festival is tomorrow if my ex student’s mum hadn’t told me so earlier today and if I was blind enough not to see all the happy children and lanterns dotting the neighbourhood.

Mid autumn festival used to be one of my favourite occasions. The best one was the one in jc. Do you people remember how we celebrated it in school? We left school quite late and had to climb over the gate. We proudly took photo with the sign that says something like “No climbing over gate. Offenders will be prosecuted.”

Quick go dig out those old photos.

And when I was old enough to think about boys, I used to dream of carrying lanterns with my boy. Walking closely side by side, ignoring all others around. Just the lanterns and us.

Cheesy?

Nah… I felt it was very romantic.

Haven’t done so with kh.

He was forever not in Singapore during this time of the year.

This year he is here.

But like me, he didn’t know it is tomorrow until today.

And it’s not convenient for him to ti2 deng1 long1 with his 8459340327 times sprained ankle.

Most of all, I think he doesn’t know how I feel about this cheesy dream.

Maybe it’s just too cheesy for him.

Family dinner gathering at Lei Garden CHIJMES

On Saturday, we had family dinner gathering at Lei Garden CHIJMES. Thoughtful small uncle planned to celebrate Ah Ma’s birthday since she has never celebrated before. But the older uncles and aunties thought it was inappropriate due to some superstitions which I thought was downright ridiculous. Hence, what was meant to be a birthday gala became a hush hush affair, a simple family get-together.

I love gatherings!!!

I love food too and I love taking photos of them.

The night’s menu:

Barbequed whole suckling pig
 


Braised shark’s fin with bamboo fungus and vegetable in brown sauce
 

Look at the shark’s fin. It’s in slices. I don’t really like the taste of it. In fact, I prefer those lower grade ones. Actually I just love the taste of shark’s fin dish. You need not put the shark’s fin inside. Just the thick soup, egg, crabmeat will do. I will not include shark’s fin in my wedding dinner menu in future. Poor sharks.

Sautéed live sea garoupa fillet with garden green and deep fried head and tail served with special sauce
 

No photos of the deepfried head and tail.

Steamed live prawns with egg white
 


Deep-fried boneless duck with taro in home made special [sic]
 


Braised sliced abalone with fresh mushroom and seasonal vegetable
 


Baked fried rice with minced pork served on lotus leaf
No photos of it.

Special Dumpling (tang1 yuan2)
 


Chilled dry apricot with mixed fruit and herbal jelly cube
 


"Silverfish" Appetizer which was munched on throughout the whole dinner dish after dish. 


Even the Jasmine tea is premium grade. Heavenly aroma. Mmmm. 

The waitress calls it "xiang1 pian4" too!!! I don't know why all my friends laughed at me like I'm some idiot whenever I go to Chinese restaurant and order "xiang1 pian4". Some said they have not heard that word before, some said in other Asian countries, xiang1 pian4 is low grade tea. Hmm….

And that’s the menu. A WhOOping $2385? $2538? $2583? $2853? I forgot the combination but I know my mum is definitely going to “pa4” these numbers along with the other combination for 4D coz small uncle said “Sure strike 1st price.”

The very adorable and well-behaved cousins through my glass. 


All the grandchildren and Ah Ma. 


Seems like many people were born during this time of September. Parties which I was unable to attend... a good friend's birthday which I stupidly missed. I've always remember the date as jiu3 yue4 qi1 hao4 because of one of Aaron Kwok's song... But when 7th September arrived, I cleanly forgotten about it. So many friends' birth dates are always at the back of my mind but when the date comes I forget to even sms them... How horrible.

“Singaporeans are blind… Just like Weilian!”

hollered my 2nd sis when Weilian was crowned the champion of Project Superstar last Thursday .

 


Oh my goodness gracious me! Shit from a thousand holy cows! That utterance is pure malediction. It is blasphemous!

Yet, throwing all politically correct crap out of the window, what she said certainly holds some truth.

By now, everybody is quite pooped up by the whole issue on Kelly versus Weilian and how each deserved to win. Four days has since passed and I’m still writing about this. (That is because I do not have time to write before today =P)

Kelly 

Damn I so wanna cut her kind of bangs now.

Weilian 


This is a Superstar competition, not some annual karaoke contest. Kelly certainly has the whole package. She has a good voice, stage presence, looks, good PR skills (Just listen to the way she speaks… I suspect she is already a superstar incognito) and most importantly, she sings much better than Weilian.

Although I’ve only caught 4 episodes of the whole competition throughout the 3 months, I’ve heard many others who sang better but were booted out. This is after all a popularity contest. I was told by many of my friends that Junyang and Xinhui (the last of the male and female to be booted out) are better singers than both Kelly and Weilian. Shrugs…

Till the final showdown, I’ve not heard Weilian sung. Nevertheless it was quite obvious that in terms of singing credibility, Weilian pales in comparison to Kelly. He went off key so many times and his voice isn’t exactly that fantastic.

I would say that his singing is damn good if I were to hear him busking in the street or belting out his number at a KTV lounge. I would even say his singing is excellent after giving him credit for being blind and awarding brownie points for his sentimentality. But in this way, I’m not judging him on fair ground anymore.

As mentioned above, you need the full package to be a superstar. But Weilian? His Music videos would certainly be yawningly boring as he isn’t able to show much facial expressions, much less dance and groove around. All his songs would be mellow, somber, sentimental and rich with emotion… PERIOD. No variations, no variety.

It is true that Weilian has certainly touched the hearts of many. His choices of sentimental songs sung with great emotions had certainly brought tears to many and his perseverance struck a chord in all.

It is evident that his visual impairment is clearly not a physical DISABILTY.

His will, courage and undying spirit are truly laudable. But is he ready to be a SUPERSTAR?

Time will tell.